Encounter
by SometimesAGreatNotion
Summary: A chance meeting, 10,000 years of rage and the innocence of a child. (I had a serious case of writers block so decided to loosen up the old prefrontal cortex with an idea I had the other day).
1. Chapter 1

"Where's father?" It was the third time he'd heard that voice in as many minutes. It was beginning to become distracting. Focussing on his surroundings, the squalid interior of a tenement building, he could detect the rot in the flakboard walls. His nasal receptors tasted the corruption seeping up from the cracked sewage pipes and most of all, he could hear that voice. Nagging him.

His Mark 2 battle plate whirring with the familiarity of 10,000 years of campaigning, he automatically trained his bolter on the target. Small, even by human reckoning, the girl blinked up at him with complete innocence. It almost burned. The urge to pull the trigger was nearly overwhelming, a primal need to kill before it quickly abated.

Despite what the wider galaxy believed, the true servants of Khorne were not mere butchers. Perhaps the mortals, those who clung to his cloak in battle like vermin slaughtered without compunction, but he was Astartes. They called him "The Wise", a joke of highest culture in the madness of the 12th Legion. He alone among his brothers still possessed the faculties of thought, of reason. The Nails had not robbed them from him like the others, instead lighting within his skull an intelligence that would have otherwise lain dormant.

Without his helm his scarred face of rippled flesh was laid bear in the flickering corridor lights. But the child seemed not in the least perturbed, but rather curious of the monstrosity before her. The chains hung around his armour, decorated with the skulls of his most worthy adversaries, some fresh with rotting gore would have sent grown men running in fear.

As for the sigil borne across his chest, the brand of the Blood God, it had forced the very stars to quake. Had brought kings, sector governors and demigods to their knees, but meant nothing to this one human girl adorned in rags. "Get away" he rumbled, his throat unused to anything less than a shout. Assuming that would be all that was required he turned to leave.

"But I can't" came the unexpected reply. Regarding the girl with a critical eye he towered above her, for the first time in a millennium faced with genuine conversation. The bolter seemed a more apt solution he thought, even as he lowered it to his side. "Why not?" he asked, once again surprised by the sound of his own voice.

"I don't know where father is."

"Then return to your mother" he rejoined, frustrated.

At this she shook her head. Despite his more evolved sensibilities, irritation was not a state tolerated by any of Angron's legion for long. The bolter began to rise.

"And why not?" he forced out between gritted teeth. For the first time the girl looked afraid, looking at her feet rather than his face.

"Because... I stabbed her." It was then that he noticed the slight tang of blood emanating form her clothes. For the briefest second he was surprised, an occurrence so rare that he was moments longer in identifying it. He then realised something else, the girl was not reacting to his bolter. She wasn't suddenly afraid of his visage. She was afraid she was in trouble and looking down on this ashamed little girl on a doomed planet, he laughed.

Like the sound of a dying tank engine it shook the fragile walls with it's bass, shaking loose dust and grime that pattered from the ceiling. "And why did you kill her, small thing?" Defiantly she lifted her head and folded her arms, which only served to amuse him more.

"She was being too loud. She was frightened and wouldn't shut up. I begged and begged but they were coming." At this the girl shuddered, the memory suddenly evoking genuine fright.

"So I took the kitchen knife even though I'm not meant to touch it and as she babbled, put it through her neck. Then she fell down the elevator shaft" she finished matter of factly.

"It drew them off to." Impressed at the girls resourcefulness he drew his dagger, which was as long as she was tall, and brought it to within an inch of her face.

"Shouldn't I kill you then? Murderer?" Eyeing the blade with concern, her voice trembled as she spoke.

"Mother said your daemons. Said you kill everyone and everything. Don't think it matters what I think and you're just trying to scare me." The Wise smiled, bending down to look into the girls eyes.

"And are you, scared?" he asked, a chuckle in his voice. In response the girl nodded, before pointing back down the corridor behind him.

"But I'm more scared of that" she said. Whipping around he had just enough time to see a chitinous hide and a myriad of claws, and then the Lictor was on him. Knocked onto his back he looked to where the girl had been moments before.

The corridor was empty, save a receding peel of laughter.


	2. Chapter 2

With a roar that had robbed the will from lesser men, The Wise rose. In either gauntlet he held the beasts massive, serrated claws. Blood trickled between his fingers as they bit into the corroded ceramite, a thousand years without service leaving them open to the depredations of this abomination. The pain, the sweet agony spurred the machine in his brain to unfathomable heights of rage as the Nails dug deep. Lunging up at his face the creatures tentacle covered maw sought purchase on his neck guard, driven into a frenzy by the scent of blood.

Two monsters locked in madness, the need to kill building with every passing moment. But there was no doubt in his mind, that recessed corner of reason within a sea of insanity, as to who or what would prevail. Bracing his gene enhanced muscles he steadily pushed the Lictor back down the corridor, each step bending the creatures arms a little further over its head.

Sensing the impending danger the Tyranid began to flail. Not in anything that could be understood to be fear, but the primal need to survive. In all it accounted for almost nothing, a second later the sickening sound of snapping chitin and bone filling the tenement. Screaming in agony, a sound which would have ruptured his eardrums except for his enhanced physiology, the creatures frame succumbed to the unbearable pressure being exerted upon its appendages. With a final snap they were both rent from its torso, alien blood spilling onto the floor as it collapsed, still screaming. With barely a second thought he brought his boot crashing down on the monsters head and the body went limp. Another sacrifice for the Skull Throne.

Waiting for the combat stims to clear from his system he appraised his kill, willing another to appear to sate the lust that coursed through every neurone of his combat addicted brain. But no such opponent was forthcoming and as his breathing slowed he felt his system return to it's corrupted equilibrium. The Nails were silent and he was himself in his entirety once again. Picking up his bolter from where it had fallen during the struggle he tried to focus his mind back to the moments pre-empting the creatures attack.

Shaking his head in annoyance he remembered a child, a girl and then nought but rage. That was nothing new, the gift of his gene father often overriding other considerations. Never mind the trivial words of a mortal. He had far more pressing matters which required his attention, namely escaping this black rock before it became carrion for the oncoming swarm. Heading back down the corridor he made for the closest exit, never even wondering why he had been there in the first place or noticing the sound of tiny feat echoing in his wake.

* * *

Walking out into the narrow streets he could smell the aroma of battle, of spent cordite and ionised plasma intermingled with the metallic tang of blood. This place, this town at the edge of nowhere was in it's death throws. A sprawling urban conurbation of low rise buildings, dominated by a single structure planted on a rise to the West.

On all sides save one rose indomitable mountains covered in snow, hemming the settlement into the valley beneath them. Snow crunched under his feet, at least a metre thick at it's shallowest obscuring the fronts of the surrounding buildings. The tenement he had just left, a miserable construction sagging under the collected weight of ice and snow was the tallest for miles around.

Off to his left came the sounds of running and shouting as a group of civilians rounded the corner. Caught in terrified flight they all but crashed into him, before freezing in abject fear as they beheld The Wise. Not even deigning to look upon them, he kept his focus squarely on the end of the street. These prey were running from something. A second later a stampede of creatures followed, far smaller than the Lictor he had slain minutes before. There were at least a dozen, each the size of his torso and armed with razor sharp claws and powerful hind legs.

Pleased, he reached over his shoulder to draw his axe, it would make short work of these offerings. But his hand found nothing, as it should. In all his service to the 12th he had never wielded anything but bolter and combat blade. Confused, his peripheral senses still registered the oncoming beasts and without conscious thought he brought his bolter to bear.

In quick succession he fired three mass reactive rounds, strategically placed as to detonate evenly among the hoard. It was an unfair contest, the monsters biological armour either being obliterated wholesale or pulverised by the accompanying pressure wave. Internal organs pulped, their brains relegated to spasmodic misfirings, the threat was neutralised before it began.

Trying to focus The Wise looked to the chaos he had just created, shaking his head like some deranged animal. It wasn't his thought, it was an invader. A malfunction wrought by the Nails. Delusions were common among his brothers yet he had always been strangely immune. Maybe they were finally doing him more damage than good he wondered, destroying his mind rather than enhancing it. In any case it was an unacceptable complication.

First and foremost he had secure a transmitter capable of long range communications. This town was nothing more than a backwater and unlikely to possess any such equipment. Looking at the people, the group who had ran into him now cowering against a wall to his right, their clothes while thick against the cold were worn and bland. Poor and without any useful talent.

So he turned to an old World Eater maxim for guidance. _When in doubt, attack the biggest building first. _Brutal logic for a brutal Legion. "You!" he barked, turning on one of the men in the group. Middle aged, with ragged hair and a broken nose his eyes went wide as he was addressed. Terrified he looked to the others with him but they recoiled as if from something diseased. "Yes, milord?" he stammered.

"What is that?" he demanded, pointing to the edifice on the hill above the town.

"It is the Administratum headquarters milord, in charge of all Septim." Processing this information The Wise nodded and turned to leave, before the man cried out once more. "It's fortified. Defended by PDF, only defensible building for miles." The others in his group hissed at him to be quiet. Coming back towards them they cowered even more, desperate to bend the laws of physics and melt through the wall to safety.

From a pouch at his belt The Wise procured a steel token stamped with the symbol of the 12th, that he tossed at the mans feet. "If you are still alive when my ship arrives, you shall have a place." Turning to the others he smiled, a ghoulish maw of fanged silver teeth glittering in the dark. "As for you, I require sustenance for my assault." Then the dying started.


End file.
